From left: Gregory O’Connell Jr., chief financial officer at the O’Connell Organization, Two Trees’ Caroline Pardo and Brooklyn Rock

Seven months after Hurricane Sandy, many tenants along Brooklyn’s waterfront are still unable to pay rent or operate their businesses. But landlords in the borough – much more likely than their Manhattan counterparts to be small, local players – are finding creative ways to help tenants who are struggling to stay put, landlords told The Real Deal. [more]

Joseph Sitt and 155 Mercer Street

Thor Equities is looking to overhaul the former headquarters of the New York City Fire Department in Soho, the New York Times reported. [more]

Joseph Sitt and the Takashimaya building

Skeptics within Manhattan’s retail industry wondered if Thor Equities would achieve its aggressive asking rent at the Takashimaya Building, the 20-story commercial tower at 693 Fifth Avenue, which it acquired in 2010 for $142 million.

Two years ago, company CEO Joseph Sitt boasted that he would get at least $2,000 per square foot on the ground floor of the tower, located between 54th and 55th streets, in the heart of the city’s priciest retail district. At the time, even asking rents had barely broken that number. [more]

Joseph Sitt

Joseph Sitt has a sky-high goal — to improve the state of New York City’s airports. The founder of Thor Equities has started Global Gateway Alliance, an advocacy group to improve operations at JFK, La Guardia and Newark Liberty International airports, Crain’s reported. A frequent flier and a major investor in the retail and tourism industries, Sitt said he was embarrassed by the state of what used to be considered aspirational airports.”Forty years ago, we were rated the No. 1 airport,” Sitt said of JFK. “We’re now rated last, 26 out of 26 major airports in the world. That’s a mind-boggling statistic — from first to worst.”… [more]

From left: Joe Sitt, Helmsley Carlton House and Gary Barnett

Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities has purchased from Extell a block-long retail space in the former Helmsley Carlton House on Madison Avenue for $277 million  — one of the highest total prices ever paid for a retail property on the street, according to the Wall Street Journal. Thor beat out Vornado Realty Trust, which had placed a competing $280 million offer for the retail space, located at 680 Madison Avenue and 61st Street, between Barneys and Hermès. [more]

Joe Sitt

Thor Urbana Capital, a joint venture between Thor Equities and Mexican developer GFa Grupo Inmobiliario, will invest $500 million into redeveloping real estate across Mexico, according to a company release. The first project will be a full-block development along Playa del Carmen’s Quinta Avenida, Spanish for Fifth Avenue, with high-end retail presence.

“Mexico has all of the favorable conditions to lead to a significant real estate boom largely unseen in developing markets to date,” said Thor Urbana Chairman Joseph Sitt. [more]

SCG Retail’s Chase Welles and Bertrand de Soultrait, Thor Equities’ Joe Sitt, Melissa Gliatta and guests

The economic clouds hovering over Europe are forcing companies to look at New York as a place to open stores to grow revenue, according to Manhattan brokers attending MAPIC, the global retail real estate conference held in Cannes, France this week.

Banking and employment troubles are creating an “urgency to open outside of Europe,” said Chase Welles, a partner with brokerage SCG Retail, speaking by cell phone from the show. [more]

280 Richards Street

Brooklyn Nets officials are giving Red Hook a once over, as they scout locations for a new practice facility, Crain’s reported. For over a year the team has been hunting for a Brooklyn site, but at least through the next season, practice will continue at the Nets Center in East Rutherford, N.J, which they lease through that time frame.

The Nets have said they hope to have a practice facility in the borough for the start of the 2013-2014 season. Their complex in New Jersey has two basketball courts, a treatment center, a workout facility, a locker room, a video theater and 32,000 square feet of offices. [more]

Thor Equities CEO Joseph Sitt and 446 West 14th Street (credit: PropertyShark)

Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities is seeking $45 million for a Meatpacking District property it bought five years ago for about half that amount, Crain’s reported. Thor commissioned Jones Lang LaSalle to find a buyer for the three-story, 15,525-square-foot building, at 446 West 14th Street, between Washington Street and 10th Avenue, it bought for $23.4 million in 2007. [more]